Posted
by
Roblimo
on Monday April 22, 2013 @02:04PM
from the they-love-you-as-long-as-everything-works dept.

When you call your business Penguin Computer & Telephone Solutions, it's obvious that Linux is your favorite operating system. Company owner Frank Sflanga, Jr. happily works on Windows, Mac and whatever else you want or have around, but he is a Linux person at heart; in fact, he's a founder and leading member of The Southwest Florida GNU/Linux Users Group. But the point of this interview, which some will want to label an ad (although it's not), is to show how Frank started his one-man consulting business and made it successful so that other Slashdot readers can follow in his footsteps and become self-employed -- if they are so inclined. You might want to note that most of Frank's clients were not familiar with Linux when he first started working with them, and most are not particularly interested in software licensing matters as long as Frank keeps their stuff working. You might also want to note that Ft. Myers, FL, where Frank is located, is not exactly famous as a hotbed of leading-edge technology, which means that even if you live someplace similar, where business owners ask "What's a Linux?" you might be able to make a decent living running a Linux-based IT consulting business.

Robin:
I am Robin Miller, ‘Roblimo’ to some of you, on the line
with Frank Sfalanga who has a small computer consultancy in Fort
Myers, Florida. He specializes in Linux although he does all
operating systems though he can tell which one he likes most because
his consultancy is named

Frank:
Penguin Computer and Telephone Solutions.

Robin:
Yes. Whereas if it was named Windows Telephone or Bite An Apple or
something, well it’s not. So that’s what he does. And
Frank, you switched an awful lot of people, both individuals and
small businesses to Linux. Was it hard?

Frank:
You know it is actually much easier from a support
standpoint, because the people seem to have a lot fewer problems.
The initial setup is sometimes a little more complicated. I have
several businesses that use Linux on the desktop and then use some
particular software in a virtual machine type thing, and they
sometimes have multiple monitors. But once it is set up, from a
support standpoint, I get far fewer calls on the Linux side of things
– it just works.

Robin:
So that actually cuts your income, doesn’t it?

Frank:
No, becausewell, my business customers are under contract.
And they really don’t want to have problems. They just want to
know that somebody is going to be there if they do have a problem.
And of course, I am there. So it doesn’t really it
does hurt to break fixed work, we are constantly going in and fixing
this and that but hardware still breaks, software does have problems
at times, but it is not things like, ‘I’ve misplaced my
printer icon, can you help me find it?’ kind of stuff. I don’t
get a lot of that stuff.

Robin:
So basically what you are saying is something I said a long time
ago, that Linux is boring.

Frank:
Well, if you want something that just works as advertised, and does
what you need it to do, particularly if you are in a work situation,
and if you want something that acts as a tool, and doesn’t run
you around in circles fixing it constantly reminding you that this
needs to be upgraded, and you need to defragment that, and you need
to update your Adobe Acrobat, and this that and the other things, I
mean it actually helps you get a lot more work done.

Robin:
But that isn’t as much fun, is it?

Frank:
It is for me because I like to tell people, my company is
Penguin Computer and Telephone Solutions, but I really want to call
it ‘Solutions, Penguin Computer and Telephone’ because I
am really more about solving problems, and I try and solve them long
term, and leave people with a roadmap that is not going to leave them
stuck in a corner, or constantly on the upgrade treadmill, coughing
up dollars, and doing updates and whatnot.

Robin:
You make a pretty decent living, don’t you?

Frank:
I make a pretty fair living, yeah.

Robin:
I mean you could afford a new car every ten years or whatever.

Frank:
Sure.

Robin:
You are going to have a girlfriend?

Frank:
I do. You know, once you have a house and a couple of cars, what
else do you really need? I mean that’s my thing. I like
solving problems.

Robin:
Sailboat. You need a sailboat. And you need a country club
membership.

Frank:
I do. And there’s actually a country club right here where I
live and I am probably going to join it.

Robin:
Oh, well, I did not know that. Well, excuse me. What you are in a
way you are living proof, and you are not the only one in the country
by a factor of some 1000’s the idea that instead of
having one real richie, the Larry Ellison, or the Billy Gates or
whatever, that with Linux you have a whole lot of people out there,
doing support and whatnot, and with free software and making an okay
living. That would be you, wouldn’t it?

Frank:
Yeah. You know, I don’t sell a lot of the stuff, a lot of the
solutions that I provide. Linux offers a use value to my customers,
they don’t mind paying me for my time, they are going to do
that anyway, but if I can leverage open source or free software,
something that perpetuates software freedom and something that
doesn’t cost money for the customer, they don’t care, as
long as it works. They just want something that is robust and
reliable and that’s what they get.

Robin:
Okay, you are not exactly Fort Myers, Florida is not in the
heart of Silicon Valley.

Frank:
Wait a minute. Lee County is a big technology place.

Robin:
Oh please, you know, Lee County, Florida, people, well I think the
alligator population outnumbers the human population by a good bit.

Frank:
Yeah, that’s probably true. That’s probably true.

Robin:
It is so bad that I actually see you, I am hearing thunder and rain
outside and I am seeing you crack up a little bit on the screen; but
it is not bad, we’ll drive on. People, he doesn’t look
like that – he is smoother, okay? In Florida it is the time of
the year that suddenly we get those bang thunderstorms. And I am
getting it, and Frank is not, even though we are not that many miles
apart.

Frank:
Right.

Robin:
In any case, in the middle of the thunderstorms and all that, do you
find that most people, the people you’ve put on Linux, had they
heard of free software before?

Frank:
Most of them had not, and I have a little spiel that I go through
with them, that explains what it is and how it works pretty
succinctly – as long as you don’t use a lot of esoteric
jargon and acronyms and whatnot you can generally get the idea across
to people. And when they find out, surprisingly, they actually love
the idea.

Robin:
But they are primarily, I am assuming they are not primarily
caring about licenses but that stuff works?

Frank:
No they are really not caring about licenses. One thing they do
like is the way the distributions have repositories with thousands of
cost-free applications – they do enjoy that. They do enjoy
being able to just type in a search for a game and being able to
select from thousands of games rather than going to somebody’s
website who may or may not have malicious software, downloading and
executable, and installing it unknowing. They like that it is easy,
I mean installed with a single click, uninstalled with a single
click, and they appreciate that.

Robin:
Now here’s something that I’ve just had to deal with,
because I went to Windows 72 or 78 or something, some sort of
horrible thing, and you know, naturally I immediately installed
Classic Shell so I could get the desktop all the time. But still I
had to update a bunch of software. And the secret codes that you have
to type in are real long and stupid.

Frank:
Yeah.

Robin:
After you spend some time using free software I find the secret
codes, the secret proprietary tends to be just a huge irritation. How
about you, how about your clients?

Frank:
Well, I work with all different types of software so the code thing
over the years I’ve been doing this almost 20 years now
– I’ve typed in my share of codes over the years. I
appreciate not having to type in a code. That is helpful. But it has
actually cost customers time and money too. When I go to upgrade
something or install a new workstation, and they can’t find
their CDs, in some cases, the software is not available from the
proprietary provider over the internet, and then we have to hunt down
CDs or order them in the mail, and they have to wait – I mean
it does become a bit of a runaround at times. And yeah, I don’t
like wasting my time. So yeah, the code thing is nice to not have to
deal with on the Linux side absolutely.

Robin:
I have a friend up here way up north here in Bradenton; people, it
is like 50 miles difference; you will notice he took a drink, because
see that is the Marco Rubio thing

Frank:
You want me to jump out of frame?

Robin:
No don’t you know, come on, you are slick.
You are not him.

Frank:
I am also not a senator or representative so

Robin:
No he is a senator now.

Frank:
Oh yeah, he is a senator?

Robin:
He is, hard to believe, but what are you going to do? The thing is:
You got this going, you got people doing it. Now you’ve been
doing this for 20 years – you haven’t been on your own
for 20 years, have you?

Frank:
No I’ve spent a lot of time in the industry but working for
other people. This is our third year as Penguin Computer and
Telephone Solutions. So the third year.

Robin:
Okay.

Frank:
So 17 years on the outside, I guess.

Robin:
17 years on the outside, 3 working for yourself. And how long did
it take the business to support you decently?

Frank:
It was pretty much right off the bat. I mean it has gotten better
as time’s gone on but right off the bat, I had a few consulting
jobs that I was doing on the side even as I was working, in market
research and telecommunications before that. I’ve always had a
small cabal of highly exclusive, very trusting people that have used
my services. So when I started out on my own, I did bring them with
me.

Robin:
Do you have any advice for someone else who wants to do as you have
done?

Frank:
Work. I mean it is really work. I mean it is working for yourself,
I don’t know, people say that you can’t really appreciate
what a job is until you work for yourself. That really is literally
a 24-hour day thing. I don’t have a secretary. So I do
accounts payable, accounts receivable, billing, taxes, you know, the
whole nine yards, aside from the actual technical work and services.
And then I have to have people to back me up if I am unavailable –
my customers need to know that somebody is going to be there to help
them. I usually schedule it – that’s another challenge
that I’ve overcome with having a lot of the keys to the places
that I actually work at, and I do a lot of stuff off-hours; and they
appreciate it too. Because they don’t have to be interrupted in
what they are doing. If I have a major rollout to do or some big
change, I will do it after five sometimes and I will do until
midnight at times.

Robin:
So they are trusting you that much that you literally have the keys
to their castles.

Frank:
And access codes absolutely. You know, I control the security on
their IP infrastructure and their network, why wouldn’t they
trust me with physical security?

Robin:
I don’t know. It is just I’ve never heard
anybody we just haven’t had this conversation, I
haven’t with anybody. So it is a good thing to think about.
How do you build that much trust with people, because it is a lot?

Frank:
It is. It is reputation. And of course, I have insurance as well.
And you know, I guess I am just a trustworthy looking kind of guy I
guess, I don’t know. I’ve had almost no pushback, most
of my work is by referral. Most of the relationships I have built
with my customers, I have built over years. They know that they can
rely on me. They know that they can trust me. And they know that
I’ll respond in a timely manner and I will get their issues
straightened out. So they trust me.

Robin:
You belong to Chambers of Commerce or any business groups?

Frank:
Yeah, I belong to the Professional Business Resource here in Lee
County, we meet actually in the same building as my office. And we
meet every Thursday morning, and we have our business meetings, and
our extracurricular meetings, and we have a lot of fun. I’ve
met a lot of good people that way.

Robin:
Okay, so you have obviously, then an office outside the home. You
don’t work from home?

Frank:
Both. I work from home, and I have an office – both.

Robin:
Why do you have the office? Why don’t you just work from
home?

Frank:
Well, I could if I wanted to. But it is just a personal decision. I
find it is a lot better to be able to focus in a controlled
environment where interruptions are kept to a minimum. There is a
secretary out front that if I have an appointment or something,
they’ll let them in. I don’t have to have everybody know
where I live. You know, that kind of thing.

Robin:
So it is a shared office situation?

Frank:
Yeah, it is an executive suite. And I am one of the tenants in the
executive suite; there are probably 160 or 200 offices in the
building now.

Robin:
Because I know somebody who owns an executive suite building in
Bradenton. How does it work for you? Is it better than just having
your own little office?

Frank:
Well it actually does help. Because there are a lot of other
businesses in the executive suite and many of them use my services.
In fact, there is actually another computer place, it is more of a
retail computer place than I am even. I am by appointment. But
there are enough tenants in the building that you know somebody
always needs help with something, and that’s good.

Robin:
I never thought of it. But besides that, dealing with clients, I
know it is nice to have a you don’t have a secretary,
but in a way you do, - you just have a shared secretary, right?

Frank:
Right, exactly, a receptionist.

Robin:
Right. It sounds like you’ve really figured it out. I hope
people are listening to this and follow in your footsteps. And do
well for themselves. I would like to see a lot of Slashdot readers
in their own businesses and prosperous and stuff.

Frank:
Yeah.

Robin:
And you are a Slashdot reader since what, since the beginning about,
right?

Frank:
Yeah, oh yeah, the late ‘90s maybe, so I remember Commander
Taco, I remember when they probably were doing it in their garage
back then; I have no idea. You know these people, I don’t know
them. I guess they were in college when they started.

Robin:
You mentioned people who can take over if you are going to be out
for a bit.

Frank:
Absolutely.

Robin:
Who are they? How did you meet them? Why do you trust them?

Frank:
Well they are all technical professionals like myself. Some of them
worked for hospitals, some of them worked for Comcast or Centurylink
or some internet service provider. We all met through the Linux users
group of which I was one of the founding members in the late ‘90s.
Three, me and two guys, Ed Gray, and Bert Rapp all worked at Sony.
And Chris Williams as well. And I started the Linux users group, it
was in the late ‘90s but I really don’t know when it was
– ’98, ’99, or ’97, I have no idea. And we
just met a lot of people. And over more than the last decade, we’ve
met at Edison Community College once a month, we’ve met at FGCU
once a month, we’ve met at Perkins restaurants once a month,
public libraries – so we’ve just all kept in touch. And
through our mailing lists and our websites, we’ve helped each
other with technical issues, and we built and forged strong
friendships you know you watch these people year after year,
you watch them get married, have kids, their family – these are
very good friends of mine and I completely trust them, and it is
mutual, I am sure. And I know that I can depend on them.

Robin:
You are telling me that the Linux users group is a valuable business
resource?

Frank:
Oh, it is indispensable. I could not have done this and I could not
continue to do this without the Linux users group. I mean just being
able to have a simple question answered in a timely manner or
somebody help me with a particularly challenging issue even in email,
even emailing back and forth to have that support, particularly when
you are out on your own – you know, it can be daunting and
discouraging to realize that if you think of it as you are doing this
yourself you may just freak out, but in reality nobody does it alone.
Everybody uses Google. EVERYBODY uses Google. Including your
customers. And ultimately issues get resolved, problems get solved,
solutions are provided; people are made happy. And that is what it
is all about. Just making a living, doing something that you enjoy
doing. And that is what I am doing.

The other side long term cost is quality of the software. For $40-50K* you can get bad Windows developer to write crap. Later, you can spend $70,000 for someone decent to fix it. On Windows, you can instead get the $70,000 guy to do it right in the first place, skipping the cheap programmer.

On Linux, you'll find fewer cheap programmers to write crap, and the $70K guys will actually understand the OS they are writing for, and have access to the people who wrote the OS.

Yes, that's what I was saying for the first half. The AC pointed out (correctly?) that there are fewer cheap crap developers available for Linux. AC to think that was a problem, though. Apparently AC hires the cheap ones and leaves the mess for his successor to clean up, if he can manage to get out of there in time.

"no one calls to say they misplaced their printer icon"; No adobe update notifications, don't need to defrag or update, etc..... Why not? Linux doesn't do away with any of this. Package updates break things on Linux as often as they do on any other platform. Adobe needs updates on Linux too.
The difference is that the users are scared to touch anything, so they don't. Instead of users buying software and doing their own work, they hire him to administer free software - I am OK with that, but I hate the myt

3rd party == no control. People in the real world have business dependencies. There is not a Linux equivalent to everything. Before the Linux fanbois get to foamed up, I will also say that there is not a Windows equivalent to everything. As examples: try doing GIS mapping work on Linux (or OSX) (open source alternatives are laughable), try doing real time web development on Windows. TLDR: different tools for different jobs.

Have you ever stopped to think that people actually do use the internet in a productive manner on the job and that it's not all Facebook, Youtube and \>

I realize that most employees don't need youtube... that being said... I wonder how anyone can be productive at there job without using internet-based training and knowledge. Assembly line type employees can simply follow the script, but real productive employees need full access to the internet (minus P0rN, ok) so that they can compete with other companies. I say this as someone who works as a dev with nearly unlimitted internet access and takes full advantage of it to be the best at my job.

Why would you install anything from Adobe on a Linux box? I thought Linux had native print/write/read support similar to OS X?

It does, it's also by Adobe and called postscript. Not everything with an Adobe badge is a steaming pile of shit.

OS X uses CUPS, a printing systems used on Linux and BSD distros. Apple basically bought it up, rebranded it, didn't use the spirit of OSS by dumping mass source dumps that can't be merged back, just like when they used Konq for their browser, renamed to Safari, then played the dickhead when it came to sharing code.

Package updates break things on Linux as often as they do on any other platform.

Citation needed. I can't remember the last 'apt-get upgrade' that broke something on my system. Not sure it's ever even happened to me.

Adobe needs updates on Linux too.

Cool. Linux can do that..... silently. In the background without the user ever knowing. No nagging popups or user interaction required. Not like pushing shit out with SCCM in windows and all the fucking annoyances that includes, plus the asshole you have to hire to package shit manually for it.

The difference is that the users are scared to touch anything, so they don't.

Which is why windows systems are often so much more out of date than a Linux system that will take updates in the background without them ever knowing it.

Instead of users buying software and doing their own work, they hire him to administer free software - I am OK with that, but I hate the myth that Linux "just works". There is a reason, that even with all the free software that exists, the software companies are still in business.

Software companies are still in business for a wide range of reasons. Many of them incorporate free software. This goes nowhere to further your point.

Wow. Just wow. Did you even read what the original user problem was? I'll quote it here:

I clicked "install updates" in the update manager window, it failed, and next thing I know I can't apt-get install any packages, it just suggests I try apt-get -f install, which fails with the following message.

Assuming you are right that it was caused by a user error in which they dared to install stuff "manually" (by which I assume you mean downloaded a package outside the repositories and installed it, causing some dependency problems) without understanding dependencies, violations, how to avoid said violations - that makes them "retards"...? (FYI, please don't go on a Linux user community with that "people are dumb if they

Try reading the fucking answers fuckwad. All you're reading is the error message, look to the root fucking cause. Ok? Got it? Great now fuck off and get some god damned sense. Jesus Christ, I'm done with this, back and forth with a fucking idiot.

Citation needed. I can't remember the last 'apt-get upgrade' that broke something on my system. Not sure it's ever even happened to me.

Mkay...just a quick googleHere's a bug from 2008 [launchpad.net] in which an upgrade toasted some Perl stuff. Oddly enough, it seems to show up in a 2012 post as well [ubuntuforums.org]

Now then, that said. Yes, maintainers make mistakes just like MegaCorp$. Linux is not infallible. Some distros suck worse at things than others. I'm glad there are many. There is only one Apple OS and only one Windows OS. If either of those suck, you're really out of luck. You cannot "switch" to a different, yet compatible, system. With Linux you can. In

Mkay...just a quick google
Here's a bug from 2008 in which an upgrade toasted some Perl stuff. Oddly enough, it seems to show up in a 2012 post as well

Hah, hah, very funny. Did you not notice that both the examples you cite were distro upgrades. That's like saying: "I upgraded from Vista to WIndows 7 and xyz broke". It was not "I ran a routine update on my system and something broke."

Mkay...just a quick googleHere's a bug from 2008 [launchpad.net] in which an upgrade toasted some Perl stuff. Oddly enough, it seems to show up in a 2012 post as well [ubuntuforums.org]

Now then, that said. Yes, maintainers make mistakes just like MegaCorp$. Linux is not infallible. Some distros suck worse at things than others. I'm glad there are many. There is only one Apple OS and only one Windows OS. If either of those suck, you're really out of luck. You cannot "switch" to a different, yet compatible, system. With Linux you can. In the end, I'll take wrestling with busted packages on Linux any day. On other platforms is usually shut-up and reinstall. Thankfully, it's not as common as the rpmhell back in the 90s.

Sad example. A bug with a distribution upgrade 5 years ago is not an "apt-get upgrade" issue. Not to mention the one from 2012 looks more like someone dicking around with the perl libraries and it broke when upgrading their distro.

By all means, keep grasping at straws. Linux does have its issues, the vast majority of which are on the backend and out of sight for users. There is no perfect OS, but to try and compare it to the shitfest that is windows and it's upgrades..... sorry no. You're way off course.

"Citation needed. I can't remember the last 'apt-get upgrade' that broke something on my system."

Recently I thought I would try the latest Qt IDE on Ubuntu 12.04. Did the apt installs and tried to use the IDE, got strange error messages and a crashing app just from trying to access some of the tools. After going thru all the obvious steps and finally ending up on the forums with the appropriate authorities on Qt, I get advised that I should uninstall the Ubuntu packages and download and build it all mysel

I think just about every time there is a kernel update to my Mint distro, the following break with absolute regularity: vmware workstation, conky, cairo-dock, 3d graphics drivers. Now, that's more likely to be a fault of the applications, but I for one would expect vmware to not fail so miserably with each kernel update.

to be even more fair, the same has happened on my CentOS distro and Ubuntu distros. VMWare Workstation just seems incredibly unstable on Linux. I'm really not interested in hours of debugging after a relatively minor (well as minor as a kernel upgrade can possibly be) kernel upgrade, so it's to the point of ignoring most updates. I'd happily use virtualbox, as that seems much more stable and less prone to being utterly destroyed by updates, but there are several appliances that I use for my work on a daily

Actually, it does. For one thing, pretty much no common *nix file system requires defragmenting. That is a NTFS (and FAT, I guess) specialty. You mention adobe updates specifically, but I've never actually seen any adobe update requirements in my 10 years of using linux that wasn't masked by the normal package manager. For that matter, I haven't seen anything adobe-related on my linux systems since I got sick of Flash back in 2010.

I beg to differ. I just spent a week there visiting my dad and was surprised with the diverse range of people in the area. It is definitely crawling with hillbillies. Mullets and Pick-em-ups (trucks); I thought I was back home in the Carolinas for a second!

Anyway, now that I know there's a local LUG, I'll have to check it out next time I'm in that area (which is beautiful, BTW).

One more thing.. if you have the skills, a great way to become known is to write and give away Free Software. I wrote three GPL'd software packages: RP-PPPoE [roaringpenguin.com], Remind [roaringpenguin.com] and MIMEDefang [roaringpenguin.com] which got me far more business leads than $100,000 worth of ads.

I was dumped (really, forcibly retired with a nice buyout) by Geeknet, which was Slashdot's pre-Dice owner, and ended up doing video work for them within a year. Still doing it after the company sale to Dice, too. Still on good terms with my former employers. Why shouldn't I be?

But what I'd LOVE to see, is someone who is not only a Linux geek, but someone who built up a business like this from nowhere - as in NO source of customers. A nobody.

That's what I'd like to see.

Keep looking because that doesn't happen in any line of business. Bakers start out baking somewhere and open up their own shops, customers and clientel from past experience try them out and either stick with them or move on.

Business is as much who you know as what you know. Connections matter and anyone that jumps into a new business without connections is doomed to failure.

You described me. It started by putting a free web page on my ISP. They gave you like 2MB web space when you get Internet from them. Before that, I flipped burgers, so no poaching customers. Some of the consulting customers asked about SEO, so for a while I became the SEO consultant. For a while I added hosting along with the consulting type stuff, sold the hosting business, did more custom stuff. One of the custom jobs had wider appeal, so I sold it to a few thousand people. Sold that business becaus

First, learn how to create a useful website. This guy's site says "Telephone Solutions", but when I look in what should be the Products tab, I find....a fax server. Really? No mention anywhere about what telephony solutions they have other than that fax server. I'm surprised that he's still in business, though it's probably due to word of mouth referrals for regular IT consulting stuff. Advertise, man! Give all of your products and solutions easy and prominent mention with lots of details so that people can

Windows works in a small business precisely because I don't have to hire an expensive IT guy to setup and maintain all of my machines. The amount I spend of software is a tiny fraction of what it costs to have a professional it company take care of things. Lots of people can do lots of things on Windows easily. It Just Works. Having to call somebody every time we need to add a new computer or new piece of hardware is an absurd waste of money, in my opinion.

I own Greenwire Technology Solutions (https://greenwireit.com), here in Fort Myers, FL. I'm from the area, and I've owned my company for five years now. We have 12 employees and do pretty well. That said, I've been a linux user for over 10 years now, and have a lot of professional competence with *nix based systems.
We support equipment on a range of platforms. I think it's important to be careful to not try and make a square peg fit into a round hole. There are business use cases where Linux does a great

Depends on your needs and future scalability. You could spend under 10K for a modest Microsoft server (Dell PowerEdge with SharePoint and SQL) with SBS 2011 Premium, but I wouldn't recommend it performance-wise.

$50k on a single server? Ok, sure...you could, but for a small business with "some files and a website"? WTF are you buying that costs $50k? Buy yourself a decent Dell server with a couple 8 core Xeons, 64GB of RAM and some storage and you're looking at $20k MAYBE. Probably more like $12-15k. I just bought a couple PowerEdge servers to run vmware for a small business. They were all 8 core with 256GB of RAM, 10GbE and dual port 8Gb FC and they were well under $10k each and that's WAY more than the aver

In that case, you're 100% wrong. When I was a one man shop, I consulted for some hosting companies, including a rather large one. I was also consulted for one of the top 20 most recognized web sites, serving as their top engineer when the guys who ran daily operations were over the heads. At the same time, I would occasionally call in other "one man"s as needed. In fact, when getting it right REALLY matters, one man is the way to go - Ted Ts'o is the one man to call when you absolutely, positively MUST

Linux is for tiny shops and giant shops. That is the conclusion that I have come to. I work for large large businesses (you have heard of every single one of my clients). Windows 7 is the client, Linux is the server. With the advent of REST and web architectures, you can completely decouple the server from the client. Decoupling is not even a feature anymore, but a requirement.

ever heard of thing called android? or steam? the windows gaming arena is over and so are the gaming consoles. You can't complete with 30 gb of ram and 12 cores and dual video cards. The rest can be ran on handheld android phones or tablets. The war is over and Microsoft sony, and nintendo lost.

..and the OSX selection was already pretty abysmal. I say this as an OSX and Linux user. Games are still the sore spot on both platforms. Still, however, I can play SC2 on OSX just as well as Windows (and Linux can sort of run it with Wine) and I can play Faster Than Light. Most of the Huble Indie Bundle games play as well. AAA games... not so much, but most of those games are barely worth playing anyways.

Some aspects of Linux are truly better designed than windows, that's a two way door, but not everybody has access to non-retail cost windows 7 licenses. I actually built a computer for a guy a long time ago and installed ubuntu because he didn't want to pay windows licensing... of course if he played a MMO he would've sucked it up and payed, but get my point?

I run a very profitable company [roaringpenguin.com] that started out as a Linux consulting shop.

I started my company back in 1999 when Linux really wasn't
on business's radar. The keys to success were:

Promote Linux where it makes sense. I set up plenty of firewalls,
file servers, mail servers, web servers, etc. for my small business clients.

But don't be religious. I certainly didn't waste my breath trying
to convert them away from Windows on the desktop.

But on the third had, do have some religion. There's no way I would
have installed a Windows server for anyone. I would have politely declined
their business, stating that my specialty is Linux. No-one ever actually
asked me to do that... I made it clear up front I was a Linux guy willing
to coexist with Windows machines, but not actually work on them.

Keep your ears open and figure out what your clients want. Back in
2000, one of my clients wanted mail filtering, from which was born
MIMEDefang [mimedefang.org] and eventually my
commercial anti-spam company that has a dozen or so employees (and, btw,
that runs completely on Linux, including servers, desktops, phone system,
and even my Nokia N900.)

For me, it has been a terrific 14 year ride with a great future
ahead. Not a losing proposition by a long shot.

This, You can do whatever the hell niche you want as long as there is some demand, the market is not entirely saturated, and you turn down work that does not fit your niche. #1 rule to business: part ways when you are out of your sweet spot. Surprisingly difficult piece of advice to follow in the real world, but respect for anyone who can pull it off.